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Old 06-26-2020, 01:17 PM   #1
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default combining Ensorcel with either Steal Energy or Steal Vitality?

M60 Ensorcel "must be a maintainable Regular spell .. distance is not a factor"
M150 Steal Energy "Regular .. Duration: Permanent .. caster must touch the subject"
M150 Steal Vitality (same as StealE)

- - -

This may not be a legal combination because I don't know if StealE/StealV maintainable... since it's "permanent".

I guess it has the "feel" of a maintainable spell based on how it operates... the "Time to cast" is variable and it seems like you begin to get an effect after the first minute (3 FP) with option to extend the casting time available, rather than needing to spend the entire maximum casting time up front, kinda similar to how Fireball works?

Although that said, I don't think Fireball is maintainable either.

If it WERE allowed, the problem is that Ensorcel multiplies the cost of a spell by 20 but Steal Energy does not have an energy cost...

The only way I can think (to be fair) would be to make the transfer ratio 20x worse, so instead of regaining 1 FP per 3 FP stolen (over course of 1 minute, ~1 FP stolen per 20 seconds) you'd need to steal 60 FP (over course of 20 minutes) to restore 1 FP to yourself?

The spell stops when the victim reaches 0 FP and falls unconscious, so that creates a problem. Even if victims regain FP at the normal rate during this time, that's only 1 per 10 minutes, so they're only going to get 2 FP back during that time.

Even for a mage with maxed-out Recover Energy (1 FP per 2 minutes of rest) they'll only get back 10 FP during that 20 minutes, meaning they're still going to lose 50 FP and most likely be knocked out unless they have huge FP reserves.

I guess that could also happen (under usual case for Steal Energy) if you tried to use Steal Energy on a victim who only had 2 FP left (they'd reach 0 before you got 3, so you didn't have enough to regain 1)

- - -

I assume "reach 0" means "0 or less" since taking people down in 3 FP jumps risks skipping past zero, unless you want to house-rule a loss of 1 FP per 20 seconds (which sounds reasonable).

The "and the subject falls unconscious" requirement sounds like it might not end automatically at 0, but rather when that happens AND ALSO REQUIRES the usual situation of "0 FP induces unconsciousness" happens?

Per B426 is either if you fail a will roll while trying stuff other than Do Nothing (ie you can struggle to try and fall unconscious sooner, to end the spell, if you know this) or if you fall down to -1xFP where unconsciousness is automatic (but that also requires hurting them, and that kind of HP loss is bad if you want to use that HP for Steal Vitality later, if you know both spells)

Of course if the victim were unconscious to begin with (one of the ways to make them "helpless") the capacity to drain them into negative FP is lost, so that's one advantage to having a willing subject or one who is helpless via non-unconsciousness means such as binding (though I'm not sure how much binding is needed, maybe enough to "pin" them via Control Points reducing ST to 0?)

Against someone who is struggling at 0 FP (will rolls to stay awake) is there maybe some spell you could use to force them to stay awake? The "Awaken" healing spell doesn't seem to prevent that, since it doesn't apply if they have less than 1/3 FP so I'd need something stronger, but I can't find it.


- - -

One trick I thought of to deal with the problem (a foe might fall unconscious before you got a 3 FP or 60 FP increment needed to restore 1 FP) exploits the idea that the pseudo-duration of Steal Energy is actually it's casting time.

Casting time is normally NOT PAUSABLE, but this sort of seems like what the perk "Continuous Ritual" does (page 23 of Thaumatology: Magical Styles).

The idea being "as long as I've put in the time, I can delay the effect so long as I keep "casting and doing nothing with my concentrates except delay the effect going off".

So if you were normally putting in 1 minute of casting you MUST drain them of 3 FP or else abort the spell and reset the 60-second casting timer...

But with Continuous Ritual, if you've cast for 60 seconds and they suddenly lost FP (maybe some other necromancer drained it first) you're not obligated to take the 3 FP or reset the 60-second timer, you can just keep doing your ritual and wait for their FP to recover (maybe they have Regeneration: FP so it won't take very long? Or some ally is casting Lend Energy to prevent them taking HP from going negative FP?) and let the ritual go off as soon as it's convenient for you (61 seconds, 62 seconds, etc)

- - -

Building on that, my idea is if you house-ruled partial effects from partial times for Steal Energy (basically just 20 seconds to steal 1 FP, which goes into a pool that gives you back 1 FP once that pool gets to 3) then that might allow getting FP from low-HT creatures with a max FP of 2 with no risk of unconsciousness and premature spell-ending.

That would be especially useful if using the proposed 60:1 ratio if allowed to combine with Ensorcel, since then you could just alternate (60 seconds to drain 3 FP, use Continuous Ritual for 30 minutes while they recover them, repeat 20 more times over the course of 10h20m to accumulate enough to get back 1 FP) to get enough from the target.

Of course with that kind of time investment (nearly half a day of constant work to recover 1 FP) most casters would be better off just resting (casting is not restful) to get back FP. So this would really only be useful either for targets who regenerate FP quickly or who have massive FP reserves where in either case you don't need to spend 30 minutes of ritual waiting for their rest to refill 3 FP, or else to fill "Special Recharge" Energy Reserves which can only be filled through the Steal Energy spell, if the GM ruled you couldn't just use Lend Energy to recharge it.

(in that case, maybe you could use Lend Energy to recover the target of Steal Energy?)

- - -

In the case of Steal Vitality it would make sense for certain Unhealing creatures, though it would require even more massive "Continuous Ritual" periods in most cases with people healing at a DAILY rate...

One trick could be for an Unhealing creature (maybe a Wraith, M160) who has lots of FP but no ability to heal HP, would be keeping their HP in the positive as you used SV, either by having a minion healing them or if you had Compartmentalized Mind where one mind could be taking Concentrates to keep Continuous Ritual active while the other cast healing spells.

If you lacked a minion or compartmentalized mind, a third option could be to cast Delay: Healing spells on your intended target. I'm assuming in this case something about the Unhealing disadvantage prevents you from just healing yourself, which would otherwise be probably the better option unless you were missing massive amounts and the skill penalty was just too high to use it.

An evil wraith probably wouldn't care about permanently restoring HP so rather than Healing they might just use a series of "Lend Vitality" castings as they went along using Steal Vitality, so that the target would just begin to quickly die after an hour was up unless someone kept recasting more Lend Vitality as each hour expired and the HP began to drop down to it's usual levels.

Lend Vitality can't be maintained so you'd want to keep in range to avoid the Regular 1/yard penalty, unless you were doing an Ensorcel Lend Vitality which would cost 20 energy per HP restored. Or possibly a "Throw Spell" version. I don't think you could use Malefice (M60) since that specifies "harmful spells" and Lend Vitality is not harmful.
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Old 06-26-2020, 01:23 PM   #2
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: combining Ensorcel with either Steal Energy or Steal Vitality?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane View Post
M60 Ensorcel "must be a maintainable Regular spell .. distance is not a factor"
M150 Steal Energy "Regular .. Duration: Permanent .. caster must touch the subject"
M150 Steal Vitality (same as StealE)

- - -

This may not be a legal combination because I don't know if StealE/StealV maintainable... since it's "permanent".
This is a hard "no". Maintainable Spells use that word and list maintenance costs too.
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Old 06-26-2020, 01:29 PM   #3
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: combining Ensorcel with either Steal Energy or Steal Vitality?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
This is a hard "no". Maintainable Spells use that word and list maintenance costs too.
I guess what throws me off is the variable casting time. Like why for example they don't just list the time as being 1 minute (you steal 3 FP) and then RECAST it for minute 2 (steal the next 3)

I guess maybe it gives you the option to do it a different way? EG
"I spend 120 seconds (2 minutes) casting, and my target loses 6 FP all at once and I regain 2 FP all at once".

I was perhaps operating under the assumption of forced-gradualness (ie they MUST lose 3 FP increments every minute) which might give more opportunities to restore FP to the target as they were drained (or steal FP from the caster as he drained it). Maybe that's just an option (if doing 1-minute minimum castings) but not mandatory (you could cast for as long as you liked to get a massive exchange after a long time instead of multiple small exchanges after multiple short times.
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Old 06-28-2020, 07:20 AM   #4
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: combining Ensorcel with either Steal Energy or Steal Vitality?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane View Post
I guess what throws me off is the variable casting time. Like why for example they don't just list the time as being 1 minute (you steal 3 FP) and then RECAST it for minute 2 (steal the next 3)
The mage could opt for either with the spell as written. Want to do two one-minute 3-FP casts in a row? Perfectly legal, just do it twice. Want to do one two-minute 6-FP cast? Also perfectly legal; it's a variable cast time for variable effect.

The reason not to do a series of casts is that it requires multiple skill rolls. If you have a 90% success chance on your skill, then one 9-FP theft has a 90% chance of success (and a 10% chance of failure), while 3 3-FP thefts in a row have a 73% chance of complete success (and only 0.1% chance of getting nothing at all.) Choose which way you'd rather do try it based on circumstances -- might you get interrupted during those three minutes? Are you trying to knock the enemy out completely? Must you have a big chunk of energy for one big spell, or is a little recharge better than nothing?

Quote:
I guess maybe it gives you the option to do it a different way? EG
"I spend 120 seconds (2 minutes) casting, and my target loses 6 FP all at once and I regain 2 FP all at once".
The second paragraph is how Steal Energy works according to the RAW description. Casting time is listed as 1 minute per 3 FP taken -- not maintain the spell and drain 3 FP each minute. A bigger intended theft takes a longer casting time, and spells don't take effect during their casting time, only once the cast time has elapsed and you make a successful skill roll. It makes perfect sense to imagine the spell as draining at a constant rate over the casting time, but that's not what actually happens if I put my simulationist hat on and insist the rules define exactly how the universe works.

Last edited by Anaraxes; 06-28-2020 at 07:24 AM.
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Old 06-30-2020, 10:00 PM   #5
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: combining Ensorcel with either Steal Energy or Steal Vitality?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
The mage could opt for either with the spell as written. Want to do two one-minute 3-FP casts in a row? Perfectly legal, just do it twice. Want to do one two-minute 6-FP cast? Also perfectly legal; it's a variable cast time for variable effect.

The reason not to do a series of casts is that it requires multiple skill rolls. If you have a 90% success chance on your skill, then one 9-FP theft has a 90% chance of success (and a 10% chance of failure), while 3 3-FP thefts in a row have a 73% chance of complete success (and only 0.1% chance of getting nothing at all.) Choose which way you'd rather do try it based on circumstances -- might you get interrupted during those three minutes? Are you trying to knock the enemy out completely? Must you have a big chunk of energy for one big spell, or is a little recharge better than nothing?

The second paragraph is how Steal Energy works according to the RAW description. Casting time is listed as 1 minute per 3 FP taken -- not maintain the spell and drain 3 FP each minute. A bigger intended theft takes a longer casting time, and spells don't take effect during their casting time, only once the cast time has elapsed and you make a successful skill roll. It makes perfect sense to imagine the spell as draining at a constant rate over the casting time, but that's not what actually happens if I put my simulationist hat on and insist the rules define exactly how the universe works.
Yeah I think you're right, and it does add more suspense, since you might intervene and prevent the spell from draining any FP at all if you interrupt it in time.

If you were trying to keep a target alive you might want to do a series of 1-minute castings though...

but I'm unclear what happens if you bring them into negative... at what point would you roll to see if they went unconscious?

If it was incremental loss of FP, an awake target could struggle and knock themselves out, preventing you from draining them further (can't drain an unconscious person if they're under 0 FP) but with "all at once" they might just die first?
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Old 06-30-2020, 10:05 PM   #6
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: combining Ensorcel with either Steal Energy or Steal Vitality?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane View Post

but I'm unclear what happens if you bring them into negative... at what point would you roll to see if they went unconscious?
What I recall si that you pass out automatically at 0 FP (it's late and i don't want to check my books right now). So you'd only roll at 0 HP as usual but getting there before you get to 0 FP requires some unusual circumstances.
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Old 07-01-2020, 03:52 AM   #7
Balor Patch
 
Join Date: Apr 2013
Default Re: combining Ensorcel with either Steal Energy or Steal Vitality?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane View Post
This may not be a legal combination because I don't know if StealE/StealV maintainable... since it's "permanent".
The thing that has annoyed me most from Fantasy 1st Edition through Magic 4th (and, thank Kromm, fixed in DFRPG) is using Permanent as a synonym for Instant. Whenever you see a duration of Permanent, ask yourself if it really means the spell or is just talking about the consequences again.

That rant started with mailing a letter 30+ years ago. Again, thank Kromm for DFRPG.
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Old 07-01-2020, 08:29 AM   #8
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: combining Ensorcel with either Steal Energy or Steal Vitality?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
What I recall si that you pass out automatically at 0 FP (it's late and i don't want to check my books right now). So you'd only roll at 0 HP as usual but getting there before you get to 0 FP requires some unusual circumstances.
I reread B426 and it turns out I misread how things work at 0 FP:
Quote:
To do anything besides talk or rest, you must make a Will roll;
in combat, roll before each maneuver other than Do Nothing.
On a success, you can act normally.
You can use
FP to cast spells, etc.,
and if you are drowning, you can continue to struggle, but you suffer the usual 1 HP per FP lost.
On a failure, you collapse, incapacitated, and can do nothing until you recover to positive FP.
So my earlier summary was wrong:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane
the usual situation of "0 FP induces unconsciousness" happens?

Per B426 is either if you fail a will roll while trying stuff other than Do Nothing

(ie you can struggle to try and fall unconscious sooner, to end the spell, if you know this)
Since collapse+incapacitated isn't necessarily "unconscious" it seems the following condition would be required:
Quote:
-1xFP – You fall unconscious.
Probably meaning that Steal Energy has a strong chance of killing already-injured creatures since it can go so far as to cause FP worth of damage to HP before it stops working.
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